As anticipated, T-Mobile has just sent out a press release announcing the official kick-off of their Smartphone Upgrade season with a $0 down sale on the hottest new handsets. The sale is exactly what we learned last night thanks to the leaked emails that hit my inbox and while I wouldn’t exactly call this a “sale,” T-Mobile would beg to differ. Ultimately, the benefit here is the lack of any upfront payment and the hope that you don’t suffer bill shock when you recognize an extra $29.50 is tacked onto your monthly statement as happens with the Galaxy Note 3.

“It’s the time of year when many consumers think about upgrading their smartphones, so why not upgrade to the Un-carrier and be free of annoying restrictions?” said Mike Sievert, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile US. “What’s better than zero dollars down on some of the latest and most in-demand smartphones with no annual service contracts, a program that lets you upgrade up to twice a year after six months of enrollment, plus unlimited data on our blazing fast nationwide network?”

The sale itself offers $0 down on the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S 4, LG G2, and Galaxy Note II. Unlike the email yesterday evening, the company’s official press release makes no mention of the iPhone 5c leading us to believe that only the four devices mentioned are included in this special offer.

For those of you who have been eagerly anticipating the Galaxy Note 3, does the $29.50 monthly installment price alter your buying decision at all? Will you hold off until the down payment increases so you can decrease your monthly cost?

Press Release:

T-Mobile Kicks Off Smartphone Upgrade Season with Zero Dollars Down on Amazing Devices

America’s Un-carrier is the best place to get the all-new Samsung Galaxy Note® 3 – launching today at an unbeatable upfront price

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Oct. 2, 2013 — The weather may be cooling down but the deals are hot at T-Mobile (NYSE: TMUS). Beginning today, October 2, T-Mobile is offering the ultimate promotion of zero dollars down on some of the newest, most popular devices, including Samsung’s next big thing – the Samsung Galaxy Note® 3 – and LG’s flagship smartphone – the LG G2 – plus the Samsung Galaxy S® 4. With this limited-time promotion, new and existing well-qualified consumers and small business customers will get affordable and hassle-free access to the latest 4G LTE smartphones at the upfront price of $0 down with monthly device payments1.

“It’s the time of year when many consumers think about upgrading their smartphones, so why not upgrade to the Un-carrier and be free of annoying restrictions?” said Mike Sievert, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile US. “What’s better than zero dollars down on some of the latest and most in-demand smartphones with no annual service contracts, a program that lets you upgrade up to twice a year after six months of enrollment, plus unlimited data on our blazing fast nationwide network?”

At T-Mobile, customers can get some of the newest smartphones at the lowest upfront cost with T-Mobile’s Simple Choice Plan, unlimited data on a nationwide 4G network and no annual service contracts – a deal which is hard to beat. The zero dollars down promotion will be available nationwide at participating T-Mobile retail stores, via customer care and online at www.T-Mobile.com. Smartphones included in the promotion are as follows:

JUMP!
In addition to the promotion, customers can also take advantage of T-Mobile’s groundbreaking upgrade program, JUMP!™, which offers the freedom to upgrade to a new device more frequently and affordably, and includes handset protection that helps to protect against malfunction, damage, loss or theft – all for just $10 per month, per phone (plus taxes and fees).

Simple Choice Plan
The Simple Choice Plan from T-Mobile starts with a base rate of $50 per month for unlimited talk, text and Web with up to 500MB of high-speed data on its advanced nationwide network. Customers can get up to 2.5GB of high-speed data for $10 more per month per line or unlimited 4G data with up to 2.5GB of tethering for an additional $20 per month per line. Customers can add a second phone line for $30 per month and each additional line is just $10 per month. No caps, no overages on T-Mobile’s network and no restrictive annual service contracts.

T-Mobile’s 4G LTE Coverage
T-Mobile’s blazing-fast 4G LTE coverage now reaches 180 million people in 154 metro areas across the United States. The company is quickly building toward nationwide 4G LTE coverage, in addition to its nationwide 4G HSPA+ network, which reaches 228 million people. Customers can enjoy a consistently outstanding 4G wireless experience, seamlessly connecting to both T-Mobile’s nationwide 4G HSPA+ and rapidly expanding 4G LTE network.

About David Beren

David is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TmoNews.com. He considers himself a Jedi Knight, capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound and a connoisseur of fine cell phones. He has been involved in the wireless industry since 2003 and has been known to swap out phones far too many times in any given year. Should you wish to contact him, you can do so: david@tmonews.com.

Because the iPhone 5S is selling perfectly well without any extra incentives.

John

You mean the iPhone 5S is selling perfectly well without extra incentives. The iPhone 4S is 2 years old, $0 down for well qualified customers, and not in demand as much as it once was.

The poster had posted “Because the iPhone 4S is selling perfectly well without any extra incentives.” However, that poster edited to 5S after my comment was posted.

chardog

No meaningful stock levels… Employees can’t even buy yet.

gentleman559

I have one and i LOVE it. My store got 40 in.

Bob Nicholson

Because the promotion is for smartphones only.

John

The iPhone is a smartphone. The promotion is for select Smartphones which doesn’t include the iPhone 5S.

Long Island Steven

LOL

Romdude

Ya, sarcasm is lost on that one. lol

John

Sarcasm isn’t lost on me. If that poster was being sarcastic or trying to be funny it didn’t come across that way.

deibed

lol it did to everyone else, so yes sarcasm was lost on you this time around.

JB

I thought the 5c was already $0 down anyways, save the higher capacity ones.

I actually wouldn’t mind if T-Mobile keeps their phones at zero down permanently. I don’t mind paying the extra five bucks or so on the monthly payments and perhaps if they wanted to do an actual “sale” they could (and I know everyone hates this) do something in the form of a mail-in rebate. Alas, it’s a marketing ploy, so I don’t expect as much.

John

The 16gb IPHONE 5C is $0 down for well QUALIFIED customers. If you go to the T Mobile site a click buy now for IPHONE 5C you will see the 16gb one is $0 down.

I bought the 5S with Touch ID on Sept 20th, but I just checked the T Mobile website to see if the 5C was $0 down and the 16gb one was.

No, I was just saying that the iPhone 5s had touch ID. There was nothing with me saying what I did. His comment was trollish in behavior. It seems your is too. Unless you meant that In a nice way. But your response seems to be coming from a nasty place

IamDefiler

I was just confirming what I initially thought. I wasn’t sure.

John

Well if you weren’t try to be rude or sarcastic than my bad for jumping on you.

IamDefiler

No worries. It’s hard to tell how someone is coming off when you only have an avatar and text. :)

Your’e a complete moron. Everybody knows it has a frakking touch ID. Maybe you should say my “Recycled 5 now 5S with the same non HD display with Touch ID”.
F*cking people who use iPhones have SUCH HUA disease.

John

Michael, in regards to the moron comment. IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE. Everyone doesn’t know the iPhone 5S has touch ID. Just like everyone doesn’t know all the features on an Samsung S4. There are features on the Samsung Galaxy S4 that I probably don’t know about. Why because I don’t really research what that phone has to offer. You need Jesus in your life. I am surprised you’re in sales with that attitude. What do you care how I said what I said? Some poster in this comment section said “Because the iPhone 4S is selling perfectly well without any extra incentives.” I corrected them saying you mean the 5S without calling them names. You should learn respect, manners, and tact. Do unto others as you want done unto you.

BTW: I am a Certified Public Accountant and not a Salesman.

Larry Lane

Did you call me?

Prod1702

If you have a problem with the $0 and the higher monthly payment. Just pay extra up front to lower the monthly payment. You don’t have to do $0 down.

Whiskers

If your in the jump program , 0 down is better because you will have less money invested up front so when you trade it in for a new phone in 6 months you come out ahead.

SensationOwnr

So you’d be able to adjust your monthly payment based on how much you decided to pay up front then, correct? You could pay off half of it if you wanted and have the 24 months of payments reflect that?

thepanttherlady

Yes.

kev2684

They should repeat this on January for early adopters of JUMP plan

JB

Exactly! Don’t they usually have a sale at the beginning of the year anyways? If not that, then usually Valentine’s Day for sure.

xmiro

the discount always repeats troughout the year, there are sales that go trough to the end of January every year

Alex Zapata

I think I’ll stick with my Lumia 925 for now.

psychoace

Damn, the G2 went up $20 for those of us who aren’t “well qualified”. I wonder how they will price the Nexus 5 when they get it.

Anyone ever seen Pretty Woman when she walks into a snobby store? We’ll that happened to me today in my local tmobile store. I got off work. Raced over to see the note 3 on display. I’m one of those customers that sales people want. Instead it turns out, they didn’t know the specs for the phone – I had to show on their demo that Samsung didn’t release a 16gb this is a 32gb and first told me a flat No, we will not sale it to you for retail. Little do they no, I happened to work in sales for phones for all carriers. And happen to love Tmo! So I asked why can I not buy the phone straight out. This is where a sales person should never assume, especially when they already had shown no knowledge of the device -he said because you use family Mobile as if the way I looked compared to his shirt and tie -that I must be cheap.

psychoace

Are you sure it was a corporate store? Probably some stupid 3rd party retailer. They are very hard to tell the difference when in the store.

Big J

Shirt and tie? Definitely not a corporate store.

JP

As someone who has worked in a corporate and not corporate store it is highly frowned upon to just sell a phone out right. We are not in the business of selling phones, we are in the business of selling plans. That is where T-Mobile makes their money. And if you told me you had a family mobile I would be less likely to help you as well

Juprob

Once again. I don’t have a family mobile plan. And never told the sales rep that. I hope next Thursday my nightmare will end when I buy the phone out right. I love my 5gig prepaid plan with unlimited text. But if I keep running into craziness in trying to buy a phone or accessory for my awesome tmobie phones, I will just move back to verizon.

Makes a lot of sense if you can’t buy a device when you want to how you want to

Isreal Smith

the sale is 0 down.. but you have the option to put down however much you want, to modify your monthly payment price..

‘James Edwards

Is this for existing customers also?

John

Yes it’s for “WELL QUALIFIED” new or existing customers.

Rob

If I choose to put more down at purchase, say $150 to $250, is it standard practice to shorten the number of payments or is there an option to lessen the amount of each monthly payment for the phone?

elite

If you put more down the length of payments will still be 24 but your monthly payments for the phone will be less

deibed

aaaaaaaaaaaand you can pay it off as soon as you want. so you don’t necessarily need to be making the payment for 24 months

Michael

Always a catch..I bought the s4 Friday and now I askee to return it to get the 99.00 down money back..they told me there is a 99.00 restocking fee..lol..wtf..its all smoke and mirrors. .your still paying full price for these phones no matter how you look at it..sick of the deceptive advertising these companies do..

JP

You are an idiot. The phone is still the same price. Every return that is done obviously has to match the paper work. Some stores just cant waive their restocking fees (Some managers will be more flexible depending on their remaining credit budget, or if you are a tenured customer they may). There is no deceptive advertising….YOU WILL ALWAYS PAY FULL PRICE FOR A PHONE BUT PAY A CHEAPER MONTHLY BILL….if that doesnt work for you, you dont have to be with T-Mobile.

deibed

lol I thought the same…no matter if you’re on contract or off you’ll still pay the full price of the phone, at least with tmobile you’ll be paying less on your bill, with no contract..try doing that with the other three carriers.

Manny

Lol, it isn’t a sale. It is just a lower upfront cost. And as far a the restocking fee, they tell you that clearly, 14 days buyer’s remorse… with a restocking fee.

ov1

Micheal you are correct. I would much rather receive a discount than zero down. No matter how it sounds 600 is 600 hundred no matter how many ways you slice it.

just got the phone last
night. upgraded from a note 2 and maybe this will help some of you. in
some regards the note2 is better (which is why i am considering
returning the n3….but that restocking fee sucks!!) and in some ways
the note 3 is better….

couple of things i have noticed so far
cons

-the phone has bugs and glitches, almost to the point that you lose a little faith in samsung
-the
phone heats up extremely quickly. it happens around the camera which in
turn happens around the area you put up to your ear when talking,
making it uncomfortable.
-battery life is less than the note2 ( i dont even know how this happens since its bigger)
-the capacitive buttons can become unresponsive and may on occasion require a harder tap or multiple taps to work
-samsung replaced google now with s search (HUGE NEGATIVE) thats what long press gets you now. hope this gets changed back.
-speaker is weaker, but only slightly
-loading
times on many apps (the ones i used all the time on the n2 is still the
same as note 2 (again, dont know how this happened.)
-s voice is
still a piece of crap. ruins the whole ability to use voice actions with
your phone (like moto x) they even took away ability to customize
commands, so now you have to say “hi galaxy” to wake up the phone into s
voice and then you have to say “hi galaxy” again to give a voice
command
-im gonna go ahead and say this knowing im going to get
slammed for it, but android 4.3 is something that i could have done
without. i see no improvements in anything and lockscreen widgets are
inferior to the n2 method for jumping into a notification
-notification light is smaller….why would they do this?

-there is no gorilla glass on this phone
-although it comes with textured back, it only slightly improves it in the hand
-everytime
the browser loads a webpage it gives voice feedback “page loading” and
“loading complete” it is extremely annoying and cant turn it off. (yes i
checked the settings for handsfree mode, voice actions etc etc. they
are all off)
-getting a considerable amount of “sign in failed” when using the email app
-when
launching the aforementioned voice actions like the moto x. the voice
feedback automatically launches and you have to reach over and activate
it so you can hear your missed messages or calls. (kind of erases to
point of having that feature)
-they actually took out live wallpapers that were made up of pics you selected(bummer)
-they took out the photo editor
-there
is another glitch where if you get into developer options and turn off
all the animations and transitions(which are long) one of them will
always turn themselves back on
-the usb 3.0 faster charging feature
they were selling is a complete dud. i thought i would be able to charge
the phone within an hour or 2, nope it only cuts off about 30 minutes
of charging time.

these are only some of the things i noticed only having the phone for 24 hrs but its not all bad.

-keyboard is very snappy and responsive with lag happening only rarely.
-browser loads faster
-design of the phone is better
-home button seems to be better
-camera is better

hopefully there is some software update to improve some of these
things, but honestly i am very dissapointed and my expectations were not
that high to begin with. I figured since the n2 was so great that a
bigger battery and bigger 1080p screen would be the only change i see.
again, i wish i did not buy this in stores. the restocking fee sucks. if
it wasnt for that than i would have already returned this phone but i
am going to stick it out a week and see what happens before just giving
away 50 bucks to the tmo store.

hope this helps someone out there thinking about buying this phone

Jose Hernandez

I just got my note 3 today and I absolutely love this phone.

ov1

Is a phone that cost $700 off sale and then cost $700 when its on sale really on sale? I’m just asking. I dont want to go to Sprint, but I really dont want to spend 700 on my next phone. So helllllloooooo Sprint.

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